Club legend Dougie Freedman had guided the Eagles to top spot before shocking the South London outfit by walking out to join lowly Bolton.

Holloway's appointment was announced before the game against Blackburn Rovers last November, where he sat in the boardroom and watched as a scintillating Palace win took them top of the Championship.

"I'm the luckiest man in the world," he gushed at the time, but the reality was that his predecessor's success would contribute to his own downfall.

While fans favourite Freedman's pragmatic - sometimes overly defensive play - had frustrated supporters towards the end of the 2011-12 season, forming a solid base that would allow the attacking talents of Wilfried Zaha and Yannick Bolasie to thrive was key in their brilliant run to the summit of the Championship last autumn.

Arriving at the club with a promise to thrill, instead he struggled for results and dismantled much of the good defensive work done by the previous management - including the experienced and influential Lennie Lawrence and talented young coach Tony Popovic.

Palace slid down the Championship table, with a 3-0 defeat to Ipswich Town a particularly low moment as the Eagles looked to be slipping out of the playoffs altogether.

A final-day win over Peterborough secured their place, and it was then that Holloway came into his own - outdoing archrivals Brighton and then Watford at Wembley to earn promotion to the Premier League.

However, a haphazard transfer policy in the summer has seen Palace fail to replace the departed talents of Wilfried Zaha and the injured Glenn Murray, while the large-scale recruitment - bringing in more players than any other club - has also alienated factions of the squad.

Established players sidelined by new signings were unimpressed by the attitudes of new arrivals, with some squad members angry at the lack of effort by some to integrate themselves or even learn English.

The failure to shift out some players on loan that weren't included in the 25-man squad has left a toxic atmosphere at the training ground, something that destroyed the previous camaraderie in the camp and a problem that Holloway acknowledged after Monday's defeat by Fulham.

"We've lost five games since we named the [squad of] 25 and there's something wrong there," he said.

"I don't feel we have the same spirit."

But more than his words, Holloway's face painted a picture.

Drawn and haggard, the childish exuberance of just eleven months before had disappeared, replaced by a cantankerous husk of a man, aware that his future was away from Selhurst Park.

While he still had the support of the clubs owners, particularly wine magnate Steve Browett, he had now lost the support of the fans as well as his players.

Indeed, on offering his resignation he told chairman Steve Parish that he could work with one of the fanbase or the squad behind him, but not with neither.